


The Art of French Braiding

by elation



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Contentment, Fluff, M/M, and a grown man totally being metaphorically whipped by an eight year old, fallen!cas, retired from hunting!dean, some internally monologuing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 09:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4096150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elation/pseuds/elation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's very few things Dean Winchester isn't willing to give his eight year old daughter when asked. When she comes home from school one afternoon practically begging for him to braid her hair for a party, Dean tries his hardest to comply. It doesn't go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of French Braiding

Around the time that Dean and Castiel first decided they were ready to make the commitment and take on a child, ready to finally settle down and have an actual life, Dean promised himself and his husband one thing. That no matter what, no matter the circumstances and no matter the mountains he had to climb, he was going to be the best dad possible. Not just the best Dad possible, but the best Dad period. Well other than Castiel of course, who took over the title of best Papa. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t. There was totally a difference.

Parenthood hit the two men full force, but they were prepared. This is what they wanted, what Dean always dreamed of having – a family. Something to come home to every night, a driving force to get out of bed in the morning and finally be happy. No longer a hunter, he was able to settle down and build something, something beautiful, instead of destroying everything he touched. It was a nice and needed change, so when he and Castiel agreed on Mary, he couldn’t have asked for anything greater.

From that point on, Dean hit the books. He researched and researched until the letters on the page bled together and he could no longer see clearly. He took to the web and memorized ever bit of detail he could about the long journey ahead. This was his one chance to do good in the world, to mend the impending road of his life until it resembled nothing like the rotten, decayed mess of asphalt that was his past. This was something he just couldn’t screw up. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. 

As for Castiel, the fallen angel remained patient, if not slightly amused throughout the encompassing nine months of Dean’s antics. The last few days the men had left before Mary was to be born were by far the worst and when Dean could do nothing but storm through the house an absolute mess, out of his mind with worry. Castiel was there, and that night in bed, even feigned ignorance at Dean’s tears as he mapped the planes of Dean’s body with feather-like kisses and a constant mantra of “you’ll be great” over and over into his skin until he drifted off until an intermittent sleep.

That last week was hard, between Dean’s self-loathing attitude and Castiel’s persistent plea of him to think otherwise. They got through it, though, and the moment Dean’s eyes landed on his daughter’s face, oh God, he was hooked. She was beautiful, from the strands of her hair to the tips of her chubby little feet and Dean swore to himself that he would give her the world. She was his world, after all.

From then on, Dean had kept that promise, within reason. Raising a baby was more difficult than he ever anticipated, but Dean loved every second of it, with Castiel by his side, learning and growing with him.

All things considered, Dean fancies himself a good Dad. Maybe even a fantastic (downright amazing) Dad if it were a particularly good day. This all comes crashing down the day eight year old Mary Winchester comes home with the request that her hair be braided for Brittney Clark’s birthday party that following night. Not just any braid, oh no. A French braid. 

“Daddy? Can I ask you a question?” The little girl plops herself right down next to Dean on the couch, looking at him intently.

Putting down the newspaper he was currently reading, Dean gives her his full attention; God only knew what was coming out of the naturally curious third grader. “Sure. What’s up, honey?”

“So like…I know you’re a boy and Papa’s a boy and boys aren’t very good at looking pretty and that’s okay because I love you and Papa and you’re really good at making me food and giving me my medicine and brushing my hair and I guess dressing me but-” She makes a face and sticks out her tongue a bit before she's taking a deep breath and powering through, “but Brittney’s birthday is tonight and I want to look really pretty and I think….I think I want a braid, Daddy, and I don’t know who else to ask ‘cause none of my friends know how but their Mommys do theirs all the time and I just…please, Daddy.”

The outtake of breath she’s currently letting out is nothing short of astounding and Dean briefly wonders how so much air could fit in such a small girl. That is, until he realizes what she’s asking.  
His eyes grow visibly large and he inwardly…well, freaks the fuck out. In all of the eight years that they had had Mary, the most creative thing they’d ever done with her long blond hair was put a clip in it to keep her bangs out of her face and even that was mostly, okay entirely, practical.  
He barely had any hair, let alone any experience with such things and up until this very moment, he hadn’t worried about it. Mary was still young enough to where she could have cared less about that sort of thing, so it was never an issue.  
Well, at least Dean though she was. Apparently not.

His little girl wanted this though, wanted to be pretty, wanted to fit in with the other girls, and he’d be damned if he ever said no to that. He’d figure this out. He would. Until then, he would just have to settle with a yes.

“Hey, hey. Woah there, Speed Racer. Of course I will, angel, of course I will. You will be the prettiest girl there, okay?”

Here eyes grow to round orbs of awe and Dean curses how much his little girl has him wrapped around her pretty little finger. “Really?” She asks disbelievingly.

“Yes, really. Now go work on your math problems or you won’t be going to her party at all. Got it?”

The toothy smile she gives him could blind the unprepared, but thankfully, he’s had practice. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” And with that, she pecks his check hurriedly and races into the dining room with excitement to complete her homework for the day.

Dean is officially at a loss. How did one learn how to do that kind of thing? There couldn’t be books on what looks like such a simple task, could there? Was it really that simple, though? Where does one go? Who does one ask?  
Dean’s heart speeds up with uncertainty at what he would tell his daughter if he couldn’t come through. Worst case scenario, he could ask one of their neighbors. They would know, wouldn’t they? That would mean admitting to Mary that he’d lied, though. He didn’t think he could do that, either. Shit. Without anything left to do, he retreats into the bedroom and calls Castiel.

After about four or five rings, a familiar husky voice, the one that used to make him weak in the knees at the mere sound of it, honestly still did, comes over the speaker. “This is Cas.”

The formal greeting suggests that Castiel is busy, enough to not even bother reading the caller ID on his cell phone. That means it probably wasn’t the best time to call him. Weekends were usually the busiest at the hospital, but it can’t be helped. This is an emergency. Dean was currently in the midst of a melt down. “Code red. This is a code red. Something terrible has happened.”

The answer he gets is one of rushed confusion, “Dean? What? What’s wrong? Is Mary okay? Are you injured?”

“It’s worse than that Cas. So much worse. I don’t know what to do, but I’m freaking out.”

“WORSE?” He practically screeches back. There’s rustling in the background, but Dean can’t make out from what. 

“You know how Mary has that birthday party tonight? Brittney something or other? Well now she wants her hair braided because she wants to feel pretty she says, but she’s already pretty, absolutely beautiful and since when does hair determine someone’s physical attractiveness I mean you barely even brush your hair and I still stick my dick in you I mean who in the hell decided this and why are they instilling their standards on my daughter?!”

The silence on the other end of the phone is long and crippling. Dean’s foot doesn’t cease its repetitive tapping on the carpeted floor of their bedroom. What was he going to do?

Finally, after what feels like eternity, Castiel breaks the silence with no, not words of wisdom, and no, not encouragement, but full on laughter. The bastard is laughing at him, and not just muffled giggles, oh no, but deep-belly hysterics. Dean is glad the man couldn’t see him through the phone, because he could feel his cheeks practically burning.

“Shut up, ya’ sonuvabitch! This isn’t funny! What kind of Dad am I if I can’t even braid my little girl’s hair?! This is serious; I need to figure this out! You’re not helping at all, what the hell are you good for?”

The only immediate response he receives is yet more laughter, this time muffled, obviously trying to calm himself down. When he speaks, he still sounds incredibly amused.

“Dean, do you not know how to braid hair?”

“Of course I fucking don’t, what kind of question is that? Because I had so much practice with Sammy,” he scoffs. Then, much more meekly and without the previous fire, he tells his husband truthfully, “I just want Mary to be happy.”

That apparently sobers Castiel up and when he speaks again all the humor is completely drained from his voice. “Dean Winchester, don’t you for one second start with these wild misconceptions of yours. Mary is eight. Eight years old. She’d eat icing off the floor if she could. While I think that something like this would be pleasant for her, I doubt something as minuscule as what her hair looks like will greatly affect her happiness. She loves you and you do much for her. Sometimes I think she likes you more than me actually. God only knows why.”

Dean huffs out a laugh and breaks into a fond smile, finally calming down a little. He was being ridiculous, he knew. This was so incredibly typical, so like Castiel to bring Dean’s head back down from the clouds, didn’t know why he was surprised by it any more. His husband, his lover, his soul mate. Where would he be without Cas? Hell? Definitely Hell. That prompts a shudder and Dean isn’t, can’t , think about that. They had a family, jobs, real friends, now. That part of their life was behind them. If anything, Dean’s just glad that Castiel was the one thing that stayed around.

“Dean?” And apparently he has been off into his thoughts for way too long for normal conversation. He comes to and answers back, “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. I know it’s silly and it’s just hair that’s she’s going to go have fun with her friends and screw it all to hell anyway so it shouldn’t be this big of an deal, but I want to do this for her. She wants to feel pretty and I can’t say no to that, man. I want her to feel like the prettiest girl alive.”

Castiel hums his approval, completely understanding his sentiments. This was their daughter after all, and asked, “Have you not tried the internet? I’m sure they catalogued videos of people doing it on the you…tube? Sam and I learned how to repair the stereo last week with a video Sam found. It was incredibly helpful.”

Oh, duh. Dean feels like face palming. Of course. Youtube had all kinds of tutorials for those kinds of things, literally everything. He guessed he had been so caught up in his failure of a parent that he didn’t think to check. There had to be one. He now knows what to do.

“You’re the best! Thank you, love you, see you when you get home, sorry I interrupted you at work bye!” And before Castiel can get out another word, Dean ended the call and got to work.  
________________________

It turns out Youtube doesn’t just have some tutorials. Try more like thousands. Dean feels a little overwhelmed, not knowing which one to even start with, but with Mary in the dining room still steadily working on her homework, three hours until the birthday event, and a nice pair of headphones he feels like he has this in the bag.

By the time Castiel walks through their front door he feels like he has a pretty good handle on the art of the French braid. Split the hair into a V shape, section it off, weave it together, grab extra as you go.

“Papa!” Mary screeches in excitement as she bounds towards the front door into the awaiting arms of Castiel, who picks her off the ground and gives her a twirl. “Hello, beautiful. How was your day?” Their giggles mix together to make a radiant sound, music to Dean’s ears. 

Mary proceeds to tell Castiel every single detail of her day, to the gold star she got that morning, to the picture she drew of the sun (which is now proudly hung up on the fridge, courtesy of Dean), to the evil creature named Aaron who stuck out his tongue at her during lunch and didn’t even apologize. 

If Dean had to pinpoint his favorite thing about Castiel when it came to his parenting, it was that without fail, he always listened to her. Always. Nothing else seemed to matter when Mary was talking and he was always one to make time for her when she wanted to speak. He looked at her during these conversations as intently as ever, as if she was the most important person to ever grace his presence. This conversation was no different and he knows hands down that Mary telling Castiel about her day was one of her favorite things about him coming home.

“And Daddy said he would braid my hair for Brittney’s party, right Daddy?” Mary directs her question at Dean, and he answers her with a huge smile.

“I sure did. It’s almost six, do you want go get ready now? ” He inquires at about the same time as she shoots up out her chair and bounds towards her room. “Don’t forget to dress warm, long sleeves! I mean it Mary Joanna!” As expected, Dean gets no response. Typical. 

Well, this was it. He can only hope he doesn’t disappoint her. Great Dads could do something as small as a simple braid. Dean wants to be one of them. 

An arm weaves around his waist and Castiel presses a kiss to the side of his head in greeting. “I think you are overthinking this way too much. Calm down, I’m sure it’ll look fine. You figured out how to do it, didn’t you? That’s one step in the right direction. It’ll look amazing.”

Dean leans into his husband’s touch and nods against him in agreement. “There’s only one way to find out.”

In the bathroom, Mary had ungracefully planted her butt on the seat of the toilet, good and ready. She is practically shaking with excitement and Dean still stuck dumb wondering, what was so exciting about hair? He bops the tip of her nose, happy she’s happy and his daughter giggles, playfully swatting his hand away. “Daaaadddddy, quit!”

Intent on annoying her because he’s a little shit and he knows she hates it, he proceeds to plant kisses all over her face while she squirms. “Umff, If you don’t hurry, I’m going to be late to Brittney’s party. I don’t wanna be late, late is bad.” Always was the noble one, this one.

With much reluctance, Dean knows he can’t postpone this any longer. This was it. Pulling one of the drawers open off to his right, he pulls out a comb and works at splitting her hair off into manageable sections.  
___________________

Five minutes in, he feels like he’s doing somewhat well.. Split the hair into a V shape, section it off, weave it together, grab extra as you go.  
Suddenly though, he is crossing the wrong ends of hair and trying to fruitlessly fix it and accidently pulling too hard out of nerves and ultimately just screwing it all up. Mary now currently sporting a slight pout on her face from the pained scalp and Dean is seriously at a loss for how he managed to make it look so not like the pictures he spent an hour looking at at. That didn’t take long. “I’m sorry, angel. I’m not pulling your hair on purpose, promise.”

Castiel appears as if on cue from around the corner, eyes inspecting Dean’s disaster. With a sympathetic look and a gentle smile, the man comes over to place his hand on top of Dean’s. “Here, try this.” And he is guiding Dean’s hands, untangling the mess, helping him overlap the right pieces until within minutes, Mary’s long locks are transformed into an elegant French braid. No stray fly aways, no uneven loops, it looks neat and very, very pretty.

“Do you like it?” Castiel asks Mary after assessing his work and finding himself satisfied. He backs up to give her room to stare into their bathroom mirror and push herself up on the counter as high as she can possibly go on her elbows. The girl eyes the mirror with intense scrutiny, then plops herself back down to the ground to throw herself at Dean and Castiel’s lower halves, hugging them as tightly as she can.

“I do, I do! I look so pretty, Daddy, Papa, you are the best!” Her exclamations are muffled where she has stuffed her face in Dean’s stomach, but he hears her all the same. Dean’s heart flutters and he instantly swells with pride. He would never get tired of those words, hopes she always feels that way. Since when has he gotten so sappy? 

All of them look up at the sound of the doorbell signaling Brittney’s mom, who agreed to pick all of the children up for the party. Mary makes an inhuman screech, she really was excited to finally be invited to her first birthday party, and prompty exited the bathroom without a word, most likely to grab her belongings for the night.

“Where did you learn how to do that? I thought you were just as clueless as I was,” he asks Castiel as they walk up to the living room to see their daughter off.

“Do what?”

“Don’t play dumb, you know what I’m talking about, why didn’t you tell me? You could have easily done it and saved me the trouble, you ass, I was freaked,” Dean chastises. 

This earns him a chuckle and the worst set of puppy dog eyes that Dean blatantly ignores. “Dean, sometimes I think you forget who I used to be. I shared a body with Jimmy Novak for quite some time, along with many of his memories. It’s not something I call upon or search for, it’s just….there. He did his daughter’s hair, Claire, quite often. Regardless, this was something for you and Mary, I wanted you to be proud of yourself.”

Well that was definitely not what he is expecting to hear. In all actuality, he simply thought that maybe one of the girls at work had taught him, it’s no secret that the nurses love him, or maybe he had gone online and done his own research, but not that. Castiel was right; sometimes he did forget about the Angel he used to be. It felt like so long ago, as if not even in their lifetime, but Castiel was still a fallen angel, millions of years old and Dean was still a severely broken man with a haunting past, just trying to make ends meet. Those things would remain, always.

Both men have stopped walking and Castiel turns to look at Dean, but apparently doesn’t like what he sees. ““No, don’t do that. This is not a time for that. Don’t be sad.”

Dean nods, because he was right. It wasn’t. When Mary runs up to kiss them good bye, he finds he couldn’t if he tried.  
“I love you!” He calls out to her as she climbs into the backseat of the waiting car. She shouts the same, and Dean and Castiel watch the car pull off down the street.

After the car disappears down the block, out of sight, Castiel speaks back up.

“You have raised her well, you know,” he confesses, looking at Dean with a gaze of a lifetime, the gaze of someone so inherently in love with another person it Dean finds it hard for him to look at. Instead, he wraps Castiel up in his arms, letting him rest his head on Dean’s shoulder. This is what contentment feels like. He hopes they always had this, always had them.

“No, but we have.” And that's more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Come stop by Tumblr and say hello if you have the time, firemanwinchester. I'd love to talk to you!


End file.
